How Big Picture Made It to 25

Special shout out to 425 Magazine for their very kind article

Meet the power duo of Mark and Katie Stern! They are not just co-founders of Big Picture Theatres, they are also spouses. As their business completes a stunning 25-year journey, they share insights on their evolution, cherished moments, and their one-of-a-kind business model. Get to know them a little better here.

By Blake Peterson | Photography by Rodrigo DeMedeiros
Nov 11, 2024 Updated Nov 11, 2024

Knowing nothing of its history, one could reasonably assume that Big Picture has spent all of its 25 years in the more-than-a-century-old brick building in downtown Issaquah it currently occupies.

Upon walking inside the salmon hatchery-neighboring space, you feel less like you’ve just entered a movie theater than an after-hours lounge with which only those in the know might be familiar. The brown-, tan-, and cherry red-leaning furniture and décor hit a sweet spot between stylish and invitingly lived-in, splashed with idiosyncratic pieces such as a tiger-printed chair, an ornately carved TV stand with a dragon centerpiece, and a wood-framed print of the Rat Pack sidling up to the Las Vegas Sands’ front sign. (Some items that weren’t consigned come from home.) Everything is elevated by a full-service bar and kitchen reliably offering refreshments inclined to cheekily nod to the movie du jour. One recent example: the midnight-blue Beetlejuice Bubbles cocktail, whose glass is lipped with magenta-colored sugar and which mixes sparkling wine, raspberry liqueur, and curaçao orange liqueur.

Big Picture’s concurrently homey and tasteful ambience is a point of pride for co-owners and spouses Mark and Katie Stern, who, in addition to commemorating 25 years in business, recently celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary. It’s also undoubtedly part of what’s kept many patrons unwaveringly loyal across more than two decades.

“We have many people who have gotten engaged at Big Picture,” Mark told 425 on an overcast Tuesday afternoon recently, his eyes bright beneath a black-and-yellow Big Picture baseball cap whose side was emblazoned with a martini. “And we’ve had many people come on their wedding anniversaries.”

“We’ve had people come back and tell us that their first date was at Big Picture, and now they’re married,” Katie added with a grin that matched her husband’s. “I love those; it’s wonderful that you’re, in that way, part of someone’s life.”

It wasn’t that long ago, though, that the business the Sterns had worked so hard to cultivate, and which had become a theatrical go-to for locals, was nearly upended.

Before Big Picture’s 1999 launch, Niles, Illinois-raised Mark Stern was already a movie-theater veteran. The business had practically been built into his genetic code. His grandfather unluckily opened a silent-movie theater in 1927, just before the advent of talkie films (he’d eventually turn things around). His dad went on to own a crop of theaters in Chicago. After graduating from Northern Illinois University with a media studies degree, Mark managed three of his father’s theaters before building a five-screen theater in the West Chicago suburbs. When a pair of nearby multiplexes soon after opened and threatened to derail the business, he knew he needed to find an edge.

“When you’re a small, independent theater, it’s very, very hard to compete with a multiplex chain,” Mark said. “So, I knew we had to do something different, but I wanted to approach it with more of a hospitality experience than a movie theater, because the movie-theater experience — especially in the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s — it gets bigger and bigger, but there’s no pizzazz. I knew there was one thing that could be so different that makes sense to me — and that was cocktails in a movie theater.”

That idea might not sound so novel now, but in the ’90s, it was unheard of, to the point that when Mark applied for a liquor license and presented his new concept for one of his father’s passed-down theaters in Wilmette, Illinois, the village president turned him down so dismissively that you can tell, as Mark recounts it now, that his current success hasn’t totally soothed the sting.

“The village president told me, ‘You will never serve liquor in Wilmette’ — and that was the end of it,” he said.

Mark was determined to see his vision through; the Northwest felt worth considering, Boston-raised Katie said.

“My sisters moved out here from Boston, and we would come and visit from Chicago,” said Katie, who before becoming her husband’s business partner worked for Warren Buffett. “We always enjoyed the experience, and always extended our return trip a couple days because we just wanted to be here. We really came to love the area.”

Mark tried applying for a liquor license again in Washington, and in the process made history: Big Picture became the first movie theater in the state that also had a full-service bar. The speakeasy-style location that eventually opened in Seattle’s Belltown neighborhood underneath a restaurant had other things that distinguished it from its theatrical competitors: then-nascent digital projection, a nightclub-esque atmosphere that remains today.

Big Picture became a hit among Seattle residents, and captured the attention of celebrities such as Jerry Seinfeld, Kiefer Sutherland, Dave Matthews, and Buddy Guy. A special appearance from Jeff Bridges especially tickles Mark today. (Big Picture currently has a smash burger named after “The Big Lebowski,” the movie a funny-anecdote-wielding Bridges screened during his visit.) The business was successful enough for the Sterns to open a second location, in the Redmond Town Center, in 2005. It closed in 2013 — something about which neither Stern was very regretful, even though they enjoyed the city and the customers who’ve carried over.

“That’s when I started losing hair,” Stern said with a laugh. “Once we went back to just a mom-and-pop one location, it’s been way more enjoyable.”

Like so many small businesses, though, Big Picture, after years as a practically immovable community fixture, was faced with its biggest existential threat yet with the onset of the pandemic. Their landlord unceremoniously terminated Big Picture’s lease and gave the Sterns fewer than five weeks to clear everything out.

“We couldn’t (even) have an auction, because everybody’s afraid — ‘If I even look at you, I’ll get COVID,’” Mark recounted. “I was 60 years old at that moment, and I was unemployed for the first time in my life. And then we said, ‘If we ever have an opportunity to do another Big Picture, we’re going to do it better, but we’re going to work on a few things.’”

Among the things to be worked on while the remnants of Big Picture languished in a pair of storage units: having a bigger, better food menu, replete with a signature item.

After some time looking for a new spot — the Sterns didn’t want to settle for a place that didn’t match the vibe of what they’d perfected in Seattle — they saw promise in the Issaquah space in which the business currently resides.

“When we came — and we’ve always liked Issaquah — we were delighted when we found out this location was available,” Katie said.

Moving in wasn’t easy, though: The space previously had housed a restaurant, and it would be an understatement to say that, judging from the series of photos Mark displayed on his phone, there was much renovative work to be done. In short: “When we first walked in the door, it was pretty terrifying,” Katie said with a pained chuckle.

After eight months and a series of frustrating COVID-related supply-chain issues, Big Picture’s second act began on March 3, 2022.

“Issaquah has been so welcoming and friendly,” Katie said.

“And so was Seattle, and so was Redmond,” Mark added, making a larger point about the open-heartedness of the Puget Sound. “We went from our first dream of being just completely rejected to three cities in a row embracing us.”

The couple, who lives in Kirkland, has seen several customers who once patronized the Belltown and Redmond locations continue to make the trek to Issaquah to see a movie Big Picture style: with a refreshment at the ready inside a four-row screening room that touts the kind of crisp audio that might make a Regal or AMC seem unbearably cavernous in comparison.

Longevity is a blessing, but it’s not something the Sterns are unduly preoccupied with. There is, for instance, no expectation that their son, a 21-year-old electrical-engineering student at the University of Washington who helps out when he can, will one day take over. What can be done for now: hope that Hollywood continues to nurture movies that resonate with audiences and start conversations, and keep giving local moviegoers an experience that can’t be matched by larger, more impersonal multiplexes.

“The bottom line is, what we want to do when you walk in the door, we don’t want to say, ‘You’re in Auditorium 16,’” Mark said. “Our mantra is just one word: It’s ‘welcome’ — that’s it. Now you’re in a friend’s house … that’s the key — just make people feel welcome.”

https://www.425magazine.com/profiles/big-picture-issaquah-25-year-anniversary/article_f11ec764-9c86-11ef-b039-5759e531e1cd.html